Luna's Familiar Stranger
by Buda Knight
Summary: This story is a revised version. This is a tale of a man who follows his love through the barrier between dimensions, to be by her side one more. But will he be able to survive in a world not his own?
1. Prologue

**_Authors Note_** ** _:_** _Hello my fellow bronies and pegasisters, this is a new story of mine set in an AU. It will follow some of the episodes but will in general be a different story line. I hope you like it. I have taken down this story and reposed it to rewrite some things I didn't like about it. And to make it flow better with what I am writing in the next chapter. I hope you like the changes._

Hello my friends. This is the tale if how I came to Althiea and became a Royal Battlemage. Enjoy.

I was looking forward to tonight. It's Halloween and there is a party at a medieval fair here in Montana. My girlfriend and I are going with themed costumes. She is going as a Lunar Goddess. Her costume is an ankle length midnight blue dress with elbow length sleeves with silver lace trim. It has a matching corset in a medieval style. The skirt has costume moon stone and opals arrayed to look like stars and constellations. The corset has a crescent moon depicted on it in dyed silk to look like the real thing. She will also be wearing a silver crescent moon pendant with a natural rainbow moon stone. It is on a half inch wide silver and gold choker style necklace that has the appearance of interwoven vines. She truly looks like a Lunar goddess in it. My costume is a custom set of medieval plate armour.

I am currently wearing my plate leather traveling/scout armour. It is real armour not just for show. My other armour is to awkward to ride in a car in. But I still strap on my weapons. I have a khopesh, which is sheathed on my back. I also have two other weapons. One is a short sword called a sword breaker, the other is a falchion. They are housed in a custom double scabbard on my left hip that has the sword breaker on top of the falchion's. It's made in such a way that when I get into a ready stance my left hand is on the hilt of the sword breaker, allowing me to draw both swords or just the one I need. All three swords are custom made 5160 carbon spring steel Twenty-layer Damascus swords, and are all matte black except of course for their cutting edges.

As I am putting the last of my plate armour in a medieval looking rucksack, I hear a knock at my door. I smile knowing who it is. I open the door and gaze upon the goddess that is my girlfriend. She is wearing the dress I mentioned before and is complementing it by having her raven colored hair have a blue tinge to it. She has just enough makeup on to enhance her features. Her eyes are a brilliant cyan, and they always captivate me whenever I gaze into them. Her face lights up seeing me in my armour. Like me she loves medieval fares and has her own collection of armour. We usually go to the fairs as a matched set of blades, me in my heavy armour and her in light scouting armour. Or in a role reversal she wears some badass plate armour and I wear the plate leather armour I am wearing now. She even has a Scottish claymore she wears with it. Its awesome. I gently place my armoured hands on her cheeks and draw her closer;

"Ah Selene, you are absolutely beautiful in that dress. Especially tonight with the full moon shining upon you." I say in my slight Irish accent. I lean in and briefly kiss her, before leaning back to gaze upon her now blushing face. She gives me a playful shove, but doesn't remove my hands.

"Oh Fael, why must you make me blush like this?" She asks in a happy/grumpy tone. I have no clue how she is able to do that combination of tones, but I love it when she uses it. I smile an amused grin at her.

"Because I love seeing you blush. It heightens your already stunning beauty. Also, I find it adorable." She lets out a bark of laughter at my response and buries her face in my armoured chest to hide her face. I let out an amused chuckle at her antics.

"Keep this up buster, and we won't make it to the Halloween party." She says slightly muffled.

"Then I better stop. It would be a crime to keep your beauty to myself." She looks up at me and smiles. "And besides, I like showing you off to our friends at the medieval far." She laughs at my comment and I join her. After we stop laughing we gather our stuff and store it in the back seat of my extended cab pickup. We settle into our seats and begin to make the drive to the fair. I think its time to talk a little about myself, since I've spent most of this time talking about my girlfriend. I am a white male of Irish/Scottish decent with a little Hawaiian thrown in for the hell of it. I switch from my normal Irish accent to a Scottish accent when upset. I stand six feet two inches tall, I am broad shouldered and am well muscled. Not body builder, but I have a decent amount of muscle mass. I am a trained swordsman, hence the muscles. I fight in tournaments and in medieval fairs like this one. I am normally right handed but I am ambidextrous when wielding a sword. I have dark brown hair and lapis lazuli colored eyes. I have a small collection of scars scattered around my body, most gained from either my sword training (from other people's swords) or accidents. Anyways as we arrive we notice some extremely expensive looking cars parked in the lot. We only noticed because they are parked diagonally to the parking lines taking up about two spaces each.

"Asshole parking." I grumble. Selene smacks my arm. "What? Only assholes park like that," She giggles at me and says;

"I know but stop swearing." I hold my hands up in defeat.

"All right, I'll stop swearing. Will you help me put on my armour?" Her face lights up and she grins.

"Of course! I love helping you put on your armour." I smile at her, * _how did I ever win the heart of such an awesome woman. I doubt I'll ever find out unless I ask*._ I decide to do just that as we get out of the truck.

"How did I ever catch the eye of such an awesome woman such as yourself?" She laughs, a hearty full laugh that comes from her heart.

"You were yourself." She says, gazing at me with a tender expression. I look at her with a question on my face. "I first noticed you a couple of years ago at the Medieval fair in England. You were standing in front of a teenage girl who had a large bruise on her face. You were stopping a teenage guy and his buddies from getting near her. From the shouting I heard, I gathered that he was an ex-boyfriend who thought he owned her. He was accusing you of getting in his way so you could 'steal' her from him. You were going to say something when I waved at you and mouthed 'do you want help'. You simply smiled that charming smile of yours and nodded. So, I walked up and said," At this point I butt in with a smile.

"You said, 'what's going on dear'. I responded with, 'Oh these young lads were trying to hurt this young lass and drag her off to who knows where. I will have none of that.' I remember it like it was yesterday, it was the day we first met."

"And it was the day I was first introduced to your lovely Scottish accent." At this I chuckle. "Well we better get cracking. Don't want to miss meeting up with our friends." She grins and nods. I grab my bag from the truck and head to the tail gate and begin arranging the individual pieces of my plate armour on the truck bed. I hand my bag to Selene and begin removing my traveling armour and hand the parts to her as I go. Once I get to the boots I grab a door mat from the truck and put it down so I wont step on the gravel after I take my boots off. Once I finish taking off my armour all I have on besides my boxers is an under shirt and a pair of thin cotton pants. Selene giggles and says;

"What's with the old-fashioned underpants." I shake my head, slightly embarrassed.

"They are to help keep me from sweating so much and I didn't want to be standing out here in nothing but my boxers. You never now when kids will be around." She giggles some more but nods her understanding.

 ** _Authors note_** ** _:_** _I begin describing in full the custom armour. It gets a bit in depth and descriptive so I understand if you would like to skip it. I'm only going to describe it in full this one time. If you skip look for the next authors note._

She hands me my padded arming cuisses and I buckle them on. Arming cuisses are to help keep me comfortable while wearing steel cuisses for long periods of time. Cuisses are basically thigh armour. I also wear a gambeson set that covers my arms, torso and waist (also known as the crotch and butt). After putting it on I begin putting on the steel parts of my armour. First are my steel cuisses, which covers my upper thigh, then my poleyn which connects to my cuisses and protects my knees. Next comes my steel greaves and sabaton. Basically, knee length padded leather boots with steel covering the whole lower leg and connecting to the poleyn. A sabaton coverers the top of my feet with articulated plating. Now comes the part where I actually need some help, my cuirass, which encompasses the breastplate, plackart, fauld and rerebrace. The breast plate covers my upper chest and rib cage and has a detachable cover plate that has a depiction of an Great Horned Owl in enamel. I take off the cover plate when I am going to fight. The plackart and fauld are comprised of scale-mail going from the bottom of my breastplate and down to about mid-thigh. My cuirass is all one piece, making it hard to get into alone. My rerebraces, or upper cannon, cover my upper arms and is also scale-mail and attaches to steel vambraces that protects the upper section of my fore-arms. This allows for my elbows and shoulders to have free range of motion while still being protected. I have articulated layered steel plate gauntlets with chain mail protecting the underside of my fingers and my palm. I have pauldrons that are shaped like snarling grizzly bear heads to protect my shoulder joints from heavy blows. My neck has an articulated steel gorget that attaches to my padded arming cap. After my arming cap is on, my girlfriend's favorite piece of armour (besides the owl adorned cover plate) is placed upon my head. It is my steel Spartan helmet. It has an attachable visor that covers my whole face. The traditional  
Spartan open eye and mouth design is covered with steel and tinted plastic, making it an enclosed helmet. It has a piece inside that directs my breath downwards, preventing fogging. The plastic is made of safety glass material and allows me to still be able to be able to see clearly. It is my girlfriends favorite because a silver wolf head is painted on it, with the wolfs eyes above mine. Since all my armour is jet black including the plastic, it stands out and can be frightening at first and to the young so I only wear the visor during combat. Without the faceplate on my helmet looks like a traditional Spartan helmet with artistic silver designs running around the face guard and to the back that matchup when the visor is on. It is a truly beautiful piece of art.

 ** _Author's Note_** _: Well that's the end of the armour description. Now onto the rest of this story._

As I finish buckling on the helmet I turn to Selene. She is holding my sword belt and shoulder scabbard. I take them from her and buckle them on. The shoulder scabbard is designed to attach to the shoulder of my breastplate and to my sword belt. This helps balance out some of the weight from the double scabbard design. With me fully armed and armoured I put away my traveling armour and the mat and lock up my truck. I then offer my arm to Selene and we walk into the wonderful world that is a medieval fair. We see hundreds of people in period costumes and armour, all walking around and interacting like they would have in medieval times. I nod to my fellow knights as we pass each other and bump my forearm against theirs in a warrior version of a fist bump.

I should explain how the ranking system works at this fair. People who are here only for the fun of it are civilians and make up the majority of the people here. They are basically spectators. The next level are merchants, craftsmen and entertainers. They cook and serve the food and craft the various goods for sale. The entertainers are people like jesters, bards, and various other medieval entertainers. The next level are specialists like priests, healers, and guards. They perform both the function of making the fair more realistic and the actual jobs their names suggest. The guards are actually trained security guards who specialize in medieval reenactments. Within the fair grounds they have real authority to arrest people who commit crimes. Once a day the police come to collect criminals and copies if the evidence. The healers are paramedics trained to deal with the wounds that come from medieval combat reenactments. The next level are knights such as myself. The last and highest level is Royal Family and their advisors. They are the ones who run the fair. Knights are the ones who put on the battles, one-on-one duels, jousts and other medieval tests of skill involving combat. I am a duelist, combat reenactor, and I train people how to use melee weapons. I am one of the actual professionals among the knights. Most of the knights are hobbyists, but a handful of us do this for a living. We go from fair to fair, putting on shows and teaching people medieval skills. I am known as a Blademaster and Master-at-arms. If it is used in melee combat I can teach you to use it, I specialize in bladed weapons though.

But I digress, you are here to read about me and Selene not the inner workings of this fair. As we walk through the fair we see dozens of different booths set up. Some are the usual ones selling everything from food to tools and weapons. But the rest are all Halloween themed, like apple bobbing stations, a haunted maze, costume sellers both medieval and Halloween, and many others. I spot a caramel apple stand and head that direction. I love caramel apples, they are one of my favorite fall treats.

I remove my visor and put it in a pouch on the right side of my sword belt and then take my helmet of and tuck it under my arm, I can't eat with it on.

"I'll have two caramel apples please." The apple seller nods and hands us the treats, happily saying;

"Here you go that will be one silver." I smile back at him and hand him a 'silver' coin.

"Thank you, good sir." I say as we head off. Now to quickly explain money here. When you first enter the fair, you can trade your cash for token coins. Copper colored tokens are called 'copper(s)' and are worth fifty cents, silver colored tokens are 'silver(s)' and are worth five dollars. Gold colored tokens are worth ten to fifty dollars based on the shape. A gold crescent is worth ten dollars and is called a 'sickle'. A gold token in the shape of a triangle is a 'pyramid' and is worth twenty-five dollars. And a circular gold token is worth fifty dollars and is called a 'moon'. When you leave you can trade your leftover tokens back in for cash. Now that that is out of the way, lets continue.

Selene and I wander around arm in arm as we munch on our treats. We see a gaggle of kids being chased/followed by a couple of nannies, one off the specialists who acts as a babysitter. We chuckle at the kid's enthusiasm, and then head towards the pub. That's where we are meeting up with our friends, a group of fellow medieval fair personnel. There are a couple of knights, some merchants and craftsmen. And a couple of entertainers like Selene. Selene is a bard who focuses on singing. As we greet our friends and sit down for a beer we get interrupted by a trio of guys who barge into the pub. They are laughing loudly and obnoxiously, and saying things you shouldn't say in public, let alone in mixed company.

They are wearing a mix of armours, two have a chainmail shirt underneath a red and black checkered surcoat with a red dragon holding a flaming sword, leather cuisses and greaves. The other is wearing plate-mail armour, with steel cuisses and greaves. He also has a surcoat on but the dragon emblem is larger and more prominent. He is obviously the leader based on his dress, and the two others are his men-at-arms. The leader has a longsword at his belt and a steel helmet under his arm. One of his man-at-arms also has a longsword along with a shield. The other man-at-arms has a war hammer hanging at his right side. All three also have daggers opposite their primary weapons. Since they are here I know whose cars are parked like assholes.

My fellow knights and I look at them with disgust upon our faces. These three bribed their way into our ranks instead of having to prove their skills. The rest of our group looks upon them with disapproval, since they have been nothing but a problem since they arrived at the fair a week ago. The fair has been going on for about two and a half weeks now and is getting ready to close in about three days. This trio have been bullies to the merchant level by blackmailing them into giving them a cut of their earnings. They get away with this because they are in good with the advisors who control the guard and the merchant level business. Their leader basically dubbed himself as the Champion of the Royal Family, giving himself quite a bit of power in the fair. He can kick out any one of the merchant level he chooses. And since this is a major earning event for them they comply with his blackmail. My fellow knights and I can't prove any of it though so we are unable to stop it. You may be wondering why we don't go to the police, well that's because the guards and the Royal Family determine if there is a crime. And since the guard and merchant advisers are buddies with the trio the Royal Family won't hear of this until the accounting at the end of the fair. By then the trio will be gone.

The trio smirk as they see us glaring at them, confident in their power. They saunter up to the counter and demand a free round of drinks. The bartender not looking for trouble sighs then gives them their drinks. We all shake our heads and try to ignore them. A couple of hours pass. As they get a little bolder from their drinking, the leader approaches our table and does something despicable. He slaps Selene's ass and gropes it.

"I don't think I've collected the tax from you yet. I think I'll take it out of your ass instead of your earnings." He slurs with an obscene grin upon his face. I get completely pissed at this and hit him in his chest, sending him stumbling back. I stand up and with my accent going full Scottish I yell;

"Don't ya fucking dare touch or speak to ma girlfriend like that! Ya hear me, ya little shit!" His face screws up into a look of pure fury, he gets in my face and starts screaming at me.

"How dare you touch me! Do you know who I am! I am the Champion of the Royal Family! I'll have you kicked out of this fair and every other fair from now on!" Spit flies from his mouth as he bellows on. With a look of contempt and disgust on my face I wipe his spit off me. He shrinks back a little as I level a furious gaze upon him.

"You can't kick me out. I am a Knight at this fair. A professional Knight. The only way you could get me kicked out of all medieval fairs is be able to prove I did something illegal. And I have a room full of pissed off witnesses of what happened here today. So yeah, good luck with that. The only other thing you can do is force me to leave this fair early by winning an honor duel against me. I'll even let you make it a three on one. You and your two buddies verse me." Upon hearing this he barks out a laugh.

"You think you are some tough shit, don't you? I've seen you fight and its not that impressive." He removes his gauntlet and slaps me across the face with it, trying to hurt me a little. "I hereby challenge you to an honor duel. I'll take you up on your foolish offer and it will be a three verses one duel. When I win you will leave and speak nothing of what happened here." He smirks at his wording, right up until I smack him across the face with my gauntlet hard enough to knock his head to the side.

"I accept your challenge. And its IF you win, and that's a big if. And if I win you will be arrested for everything you have done here at the fair. I shall see you upon the field of battle." He has a supremely pissed off face as he and his men leave the building. I turn to Sir Charles Sidmon, one of my fellow knights;

"Could you go and tell the Advisor of Knights of the honor duel and the stakes." He nods his head and gets up to leave. "Thank you, Charles." As he leaves I turn to Selene, my accent cooling back to its normal Irish brogue.

"Are you all right, my love?" She smiles at me and nods but then a look of worry crosses her face.

"But will you be alright? You will be facing three men at once." At her question the remaining knights at the table burst out laughing. Selene looks at them confused.

"Selene my love, you remember how skilled I am right?" At my question she nods. "I let him have his buddies because it wouldn't be any fun with just him. The three of them combined have about as much training and skill as one of my first year students. And besides Robert, their leader, is a coward. He will have his two buddies fight me while he stands back and watches." As I finish explaining Selene nods her understanding and as the hilarity of the ensuing fight settles in, she starts laughing her ass off, soon followed by everyone else in the pub.

"Come Fael, lets get you to the dueling field. You need to get ready for the fight." Sir Christopher Knight says. I kid you naught his last name is Knight. His nickname among us is Sir Knight Knight. We call him this partially because of his name, but mostly for his habit of knocking his opponent's unconscious with his battle axe.

"Right behind you my friend. So, Selene are you going to watch me soundly trounce these guys?"

"Of course. Just don't get to cocky, you know what you always say about that." She says with a smirk.

"Yep, 'A cocky warrior is a dead warrior'. Once I'm on the field I'll treat this fight like my life depends on it."

"Good. No dying on me." I chuckle and kiss her forehead as we head to the dueling field. Once we arrive we see that the field is lit up with a couple of work lights illuminating the center of the field. The edge of the field is shadowy, with only the faint lights of the stands to shed any light. I start stretching as much as I can in my armour, which is more than enough since my armour doesn't hamper my movements much. I then hear the trumpets announcing the arrival of the Royal Family. They preside over all honor duels. I head out to the field with my fellow knights and Selene to greet them. Selene curtsies while we knight's take a knee. The trio of assholes haven't arrived yet. The King steps forward and says to the gathered crowd, word having spread rapidly of the duel;

"Today we are to bear witness to an honor duel between Sir Fael Barloc and Sir Robert Lexon and his men-at-arms. We will begin as soon as Sir Lexon appears. If he fails to do so in a timely manner, he shall forfeit the duel." As the King finishes his speech Robert and his men show up.

"Why are you the last to appear for a duel you called?" The King asks, a frown upon his face. Robert smirks and says;

"I just had a few last-minute things to take care of, your highness." His tone speaks volumes that he holds no respect for one of the organizers of the fair. The King scowls at this but says nothing. He merely gestures for us to get ready and take our places. I unfasten all unnecessary pouches from my belt and my owl cover plate and place them on a table. I then place my helmet on my head and affix the visor, finishing my preparations. I head into the field and stand at my end waiting. Robert and his men put on their helmets and stand on their side.

"When the trumpet sounds begin combat. Draw your weapons." I draw my khopesh and they draw their respective weapons. I stare them down waiting for the signal. Once the trumpet lets out a single clear note I start jogging towards my opponents. Robert yells 'charge' and his men take off running at me. Inwardly I laugh, they are tiring themselves out needlessly. We are only a couple yards away form each other. As they approach the one with the war hammer gets to me first and swings his hammer at me in a over head strike. I quickly use my khopesh to its full advantage and hook the oncoming weapon and deflect it to my left, leaving him wide open. I slam my fist into his stomach, causing him to double over. His buddy with the shield tries to shield bash me. I dodge and slam the forward curve of my khopesh into his shield, biting deeply into its wooden surface and bruising his arm. He tries to hit me with his sword but we are to close for the sweeping arc of his sword to be effective. I grab his wrist, stopping his sword arm in its tracks. He tries to muscle his way towards me but he isn't as strong as I am. I quickly shove him back and Sparta kick his shield knocking him on his butt.

During this exchange the war hammer wielding guy recovers his breath enough to let out a shout and take another swing at me. It lands but is deflected by my right pauldron, caving in the bears snout. My shoulder is bruised a little but the armour did its job. I retaliate by slamming the forward curve of my khopesh into his gut, causing his surcoat to be cut open and his chain-mail to be severely damaged. It looked good, but wasn't made to actually go into battle. It stopped my sword enough that I didn't gut him, just knocked the wind out of him. He falls to the ground, out of the fight. I kick his war hammer out of his reach and turn to his buddy. He just finished getting back up and runs at me, his sword raised and shield in front of him. I stand my ground, waiting, then when he starts swinging his sword I dodge to the side. As he stumbles past, overbalanced from the lack if resistance, I hook his right leg with the inner curve of my khopesh, tripping him. I then hit him in the head hard enough to dent his helmet, but not enough to kill him. He is knocked unconscious from the blow and I signal a healer to come check on him.

I turn to the now fearful Robert. I let out a laugh when I notice his sword is shaking. I start walking towards him when he does something unexpected and completely against the rules. He draws a pistol and points it at me.

"S-Stay Ba-Back you demon!" He yells in fear, his words stuttering. Everyone is shocked at what is happening.

"Robert Lexon, you called for this honor duel. How dare you bring in a firearm. It is not only against the law to have a gun in the fair unless you are a guard, its against the rules in a duel as well. Now drop the gun or the guards shall taser you." The king bellows at the disgraced Sir Lexon. Unnoticed by everyone, Selene had gone under the barricade and was approaching Robert and me.

"No. This rat bastard cheated. There is no way he could beat two men at once."

"And how is it possible I cheated? Hm? I fought them in front of all these people. There is no possible way I could cheat without all these people seeing." I spit back at him.

"You must have bribed the bartender to drug the beer we were drinking earlier. Yeah, that's what you had to have done, you cheating bastard." Robert shouts at me. All this time Selene is getting closer to me, her dark dress and the deep shadows at the edge of the field helping her hide.

"Enough! You are the one who is cheating by brandishing a firearm. Now drop it or the guards WILL taser you." The king bellows, having lost what little patience he had.

"No! Not until I kill this bastard for ruining me. Die you fuck!" He yells at the top of his lungs. He then takes aim and fires at me. I close my eyes, expecting to be shot. Instead all I hear is a ping, a pained cry and a thump. I open my eyes to see Selene lying in front of me with a bullet hole in her back. Upon seeing my beloved in that state my vision turns red and I let out an ungodly howl of pain and anger. Everyone, even Robert, was frozen in shock at what happened until I let out that howl. They all jump in surprise at the unexpected sound. Robert is so unnerved by the sound that he nearly drops the pistol.

In a state of pure rage I throw my khopesh at him. It arcs through the air and slams into his right shoulder with enough force to bury the blade into the bone. Right after it hits I am running full out at him while drawing my falchion. He is screaming in pain, trying to pull the blade out. Then he sees me right in front of him and all he sees is the silver wolf painted on my helmet glaring at him. He has a look of absolute terror in his eyes. I growl as I prepare a diagonal slash at his torso. But before I can deliver the blow I hear a shout behind me;

"Don't kill him!" My beloved Selene, even in her weakened state, doesn't want me to kill in anger. I accept her wish and instead hit him in the head with the back of my blade, since falchions are single edged swords. This knocks him unconscious and he falls to the ground in an unceremonious heap.

I yank my khopesh from his shoulder and then rush to Selene, dropping both blades before kneeling beside her and remove my helmet. I turn her over and look for an exit wound. There is one. The bullet entered her back and exited through her rib cage. I look at my chest and see a silver dent in my armour. The bullet was slowed enough by passing through her that it didn't have enough momentum to pierce my steel armour.

Selene opens her eyes and smiles at seeing me okay. She coughs a little and blood comes with it. Not a lot but enough to know the bullet pierced her lung. While Robert has a good chance to survive his wound, it will take too long for a medical helicopter to arrive to save my love.

"Why Selene? Why did you take that bullet for me? My armour would have slowed the bullet enough to give me a chance." I say with tears flowing down my face. She puts her hand on my face, stroking my cheek.

"You know why Fael. I love you, you helped me when I needed it most." She says tenderly.

"This wasn't how it was supposed to go tonight. I was planning to propose to you tonight at midnight…" I say as the crowd begins to cry with us at the tragedy of this night.

"I know love. I saw the ring. Would you…" She is interrupted by a cough that brings out more blood. "Would you please propose anyways? I want to…" She is once again interrupted with a bloody cough. In the background I hear the medics calling for a medical helicopter and filling them in on the list of injuries.

"Okay. Selene my love, will you marry me?" I say tenderly through my tears. She smiles a warm and tender smile that lights up her face.

"Of course, my beloved Fael. My beloved Wolf." I share a tender smile with her until I feel a hand on my shoulder. Its Chris, handing me the ring I had in a pouch. I silently thank him and take her hand, and place a silver band onto her finger. Instead of being a traditional engagement band, it is mostly flat with a trio of flawless moonstones. The one in the middle is a quarter inch in diameter and the others on either side are slightly smaller. She looks at it and smiles.

"Its beautiful Fael. I love it." A single tear rolls down her cheek. "I wish I could wear it longer." I cry along with her. Unbeknown to us the King, had approached us and heard all of it. We are startled when he suddenly speaks.

"If you would like, I have the legal right to grant you two a marriage certificate. And being a judge helps me move things along. Under the circumstances, I think we can ignore the usual protocol of obtaining a certificate. I'll still need to see your ID, but other than that, I will handle the rest." He says in his deep baritone voice. I look at Selene and she nods.

"We gladly take you up on your offer." One of my fellow knights brings me both Selene's purse and my pouches. I dig around until I find both my ID and hers. I hand them to the King and he nods.

"I'll go start the paper work now. Pastor Willsonton will gladly perform the ceremony." With that he walks towards the 'Castle', which is actually the admin building. I turn to the pastor;

"Thank you for doing this." He nods and smiles.

"Think nothing of it. This day deserves to have some happiness in it. Now who will be witnesses?" Unsurprisingly, all my fellow knights step forward and form two lines either side of us. They then draw their weapons and plant them in the ground and take a knee. The rest of the employees of the fair form a ring around us. Seeing this show of respect makes the pastor smile. * _These two mean a lot to the men and women at this fair.*_

"Alright then. Let us begin. I am honored to be joining these two under the bonds of holy matrimony. If there is anyone who believes these two should not get married, speak now or forever hold your piece." After a pause he continues.

"I didn't think there would be any. Now do either of you have vows you would like to speak." I nod and say with equal amounts of happiness and sadness;

"I have one prepared." The pastor nods and gestures for me to continue.

"My dear Selene, my time with you has been the best years of my life. You added a new purpose to my life. And I would continue it in the next. Selene, I vow to be by your side in this life and the next. Where ever you go, I shall follow. With this ceremony filled with love, honor and mutual respect, I pledge my soul to yours. I shall forever be your Knight." Tears fill the eyes of all present, and my fellow knights thump their breastplates with their free fist to show their support. Selene's face is glowing with happiness, tears brimming in her eyes.

"My beloved Fael. My wolf. Since the day I met you, my heart has been filled with joy. You are strong, yet gentle. You can be fierce, but you possess boundless kindness. You always strive to help others, and I have benefited from that as well. You healed my broken heart, and it shall forever be yours. In this life and the next." Selene is interrupted by a bloody cough, a trickle of blood flowing from the corner of her mouth. I gently wipe the blood away, and start crying a new. "Hush now my love. You have always been a knight at heart. You are my Knight in battle tested armour. I will wait for you in the next life." I smile at her words, slowly stroking her cheek as I gaze into her eyes.

"With the vows spoken, the bond between these two is laid bare for all to see. With the power vested in me by the lord on high. I now pronounce you husband and wife," Pastor Willsonton looks upon them with pride, and decides to break from tradition with his next words. "In this life and the next." After he speaks those words, everyone present feels a rush of emotion laced energy surge through them. They see a transparent vortex of shining lights form in front of them. It condenses down and slowly swirls around the circle, then flows down the line of kneeling knights, seeming to take an afterimage of them with it. As it passes each pair of Knights, they bow their heads and place both hands upon the hilts of their weapons. Once it reaches Selene and Fael, it swirls faster and faster. Then it appears to be absorbed by them. Everyone is surprised by this, but feel it is a good thing.

"With this blessing from your friends, I am honored to say these final words. You may now kiss the bride." Pastor Willsonton says with a great deal of emotion in his voice. I turn to Selene and gently kiss her, she responds in kind. She has a smile on her face as we pull apart to look into each others' eyes. She coughs again, weakly and I know the end is near.

"Goodbye my love. Until we see each other again." Selene says as her life drains away. Her eyes slowly close, as she exhales her last breath. I lay her down and remove my cloak, using it to cover her. Moved beyond tears by the emotion charged scene before them, the crowd begins to softly sing a wordless song. My fellow knights soon join them, raising their voices to lead the wordless song of love and loss, of honor and commitment. I get swept up in the song and begin to sing an undertone to the main song. Pouring my heart felt emotions into the wordless song. As we sing, a gentle blue glow shines from under my cloak. As we stare in wonder at the sight, unconsciously still singing, we see the blue glow brighten for a moment, then fade away. The cloak slowly sinks to the ground, showing that there is no longer anything beneath it. A glowing blue figure slowly fades into view. It approaches me and puts a ghostly hand upon my cheek.

"I will see you again my love. If you follow my instructions you will see me sooner than you think. Go to our cabin up in the mountains. Bring all your medieval gear. You will be tested there, and if you succeed you will be given a new start. A new life." The ghostly figure then kisses my forehead and disappears toward the stars. Once she is gone the gathered crowd stops singing. I stand up and collect my cloak from the ground, noticing that her necklace has remained behind. Next to it is the ring I gave her. When I pick them up I hear a ghostly voice;

"Use these to find me. Our time together is etched onto my soul. And these items will serve to mark our connection to any who see you with them." As the voice goes quiet I calmly collect the rest of my things. After cleaning and sheathing my swords I turn to my fellow knights. I point to the injured Robert.

"Will you take care of him?" I say with a deathly cold tone to my voice as I say the last word. A hand is put on my upper arm, and I turn to its owner.

"Of course. You needn't worry. You go inform the King." Chris says, patting my arm before he turns and starts bellowing orders. I head towards the castle, grieving silently. As I am about to reach the door, the judge comes out and sees me. He motions with his head for me to follow him. As we head for his office his voice takes on a mournful tone.

"I'm sorry for your loss Fael, Selene was a wonderful woman. She shall be deeply missed by all here. I've already got the paper work ready to go. It just needs your signature. I've even made preparations for her to be buried here. If you would like."

"I would like that. You needn't worry about actually burying her. Her body vanished a short time ago. A nice headstone would be fine. I'll pick it out before I leave." I say, my voice heavy. My words bring obvious shock to the king. But he quickly shakes his head and continues on.

"That will be fine. Here we are." As we enter his office we see a ghostly hand writing on a document. As we get closer the hand vanishes. The King picks up the document with a shocked look.

"This is the marriage certificate. Selene's signature is on it. How?"

"I do not know. But let's not question it." The king nods his head and hands me the document. I quickly sign it.

"This will be filed first thing in the morning. I will deal with the paperwork that has to be dealt with. You go and grieve."

A short time later I find myself back at my house. I call my business partner and inform them of what happened. My partner says to take all the time I need. I thank him and hang up. I gather all my medieval style gear. Which includes travel and camping gear, my repair kit for my armour, and spare clothes. I also pack a modern first aid kit. When I have all my gear ready I put all in my truck and head towards the Flathead valley. My cabin is in the foothills near Echo Lake. When I arrive it is the middle of the next night. I get out of my truck and stare up at the moon. The moon is full tonight and it is a beautiful sight. I remember all the times Selene and I would camp out to star gaze. I shake my head and haul my gear into the cabin. I quickly divest my self of my armour and lay down to sleep.

I am abruptly awoken in the early hours of the morning by a loud roar from a powerful sounding beast. I also hear a woman scream. I hurriedly put on my sword belt and my shoulder scabbard and rush out. What I see causes me to stop dead in my tracks. I see a woman who has been treed by a massive wolf. It senses my presence and turns its head to look at me. I notice the large incisors and immediately my mind places the creature as a dire wolf.

"I always thought these guys were myths." I say quietly to myself. The woman in the tree takes notice of me as well and yells;

"Please help me!" The dire wolf snarls up at her and she lets out a loud 'eep', and tries to hide herself unsuccessfully. I turn to the dire wolf;

"Well you heard her. She asked for my help. So please leave, I don't want to have to fight you." * _both for my sake and yours. *_ The dire wolf just howls and charges me. I quickly get into a ready stance, with one hand on my falchion and one on my sword breaker. Once he gets close enough I draw both and quickly slash at his face. He dodges to the side and starts sizing me up. While he is circling me, I make sure to keep him in front of me. Not seeing an opening, the dire wolf lunges forward and swipes at me. I duck under the blow and stab my sword breaker into his upper right leg at the elbow joint. He jerks the leg back, nearly ripping the short sword from my grip. I quickly jump to the side and slash at his torso with my falchion. He yelps in pain as my falchion makes a long wound over his ribs. He tries to swipe at me again but when I block the blow both he and I howl in pain. I am in pain because my block fails to fully stop his swipe, leaving me with shallow claw marks on my right shoulder. Painful but not life threatening. He howls because the force he put into the blow aggravated his injured elbow joint

He lets out a furious growl and lunges forward trying to bite me. I dodge to his non-injured side and smack the back of his head with the back of my falchion, stunning him for a second. This allows me to make another long wound in his side. The pain causes him to snap out of his stunned state. He twirls and lunges at me again, but this time his injured right elbow gives out on him and he stumbles. I take this opportunity to slam both my hilts on the sides of his head. He stumbles a bit more, stunned by the blow. I then slam my falchions flat back edge on the top of his skull. I put enough force into it to render him unconscious.

As he falls to the ground I slump down as well, exhausted from the fight. If it had continued on much longer I would have been lunch. As I lay there resting and trying to figure out were this critter came from the woman climbs out of her tree and approaches me. I look at her and note her medieval era dress. It actually looks authentic, not a recreation like the ones you see people wearing. Before I can ask were she got the dress from, she asks a question of her own.

"Are you not going to finish the wolf off?" Her voice has a questioning but scared tone to it. Like she thinks she knows how I will answer.

"I am not going to 'finish him'." At the last two words I use the mortal combat way of saying it. She looks at me confused, both by what I said and how I said it.

"Why not? The dire wolf is a dangerous creature. Wouldn't it be better to be rid of it?" I shake my head at her questions.

"It would be better for who? The wolf, the world or us?" A look of complete confusion crosses her face. I sigh and stand up, and after cleaning and sheathing my blades approach the dire wolf.

"He was just doing what nature intended of him. He is a hunter, so he hunts. He hunts for prey, he hunts for a mate. He hunts because that is what he does. He is big enough that he saw you and me as prey. After I hurt him the first time he realized I was a predator too. That fact didn't change his urge to eat either of us, just the order. I don't hold it against him. So why should I kill something that can no longer hurt me? If I was forced to in the fight I would have killed him in a heart beat. But that is not how the fight went. I won without the need to kill a noble beast who was just acting on instinct. Now I just have to figure out how to get him home, for clearly he doesn't belong here." A look of admiration and respect is upon her face.

"You are a noble man Fael Barloc. There are few people who would be willing to spare this creatures life after it attacked them. You are definitely worthy of a new life." At her words a stunned realization hits me.

"You mean this was my test. I get to see Selene again?" I say, hope and joy in my voice. The woman smiles at me.

"Indeed, you will. But because she went back early, she will not come back for another one hundred and fifty of our years." My heart sinks at the thought of having to wait that long to see her again.

"I'll be dead by the time she returns." She chuckles at this.

"Not really. If you had been born in our world you would only be about three quarters through your life span by then. Our people can live a little over two hundred years." My jaw drops at that.

"Wow, that is a long life. Will I live that long?"

"No," at this my heart drops. "You will live longer. Because I like you, I will be giving you gifts. One of which is an extended life span. You will have a life span that will be as long as Selene's. You will still be able to be killed. But so long as you avoid that you will live as long as she does. As for your other gifts, I will tell you of them as I transfer you to our world." She says with a warm smile. I respond with a smile of my own.

"When do we leave?" I ask, wondering how much time I have to get ready. She chuckles and says;

"I will open the portal after I get to know you a little. I would like to know how you and my daughter met." She bursts out laughing at my shocked face. I was shocked and worried.

"Do not worry. I approve of my daughter and you being together. My name is Aurora. Let's head inside after I send this wolf back to Althiea." At my look of confusion, she explains. "The country my two daughters call home is called Althiea. It is a somewhat large country that takes up most of the continent it is on." I nod my understanding and she waves her hand over the dire wolf. An aurora colored aura surrounds the creature and in a flash, it vanishes.

"Okay, lets head in." We start heading for my cabin. As we get within reach of the porch Aurora admires my cabin. "You have a lovely cabin."

"Thank you. I originally built it to be a retreat from the world. A sanctuary where I could be alone with my thoughts and practice my art. But when I met Selene, that changed." I say with a happy smile. Aurora looks at me with a curious expression.

"Hmm? What do you mean by that?" I look at her as we walk up the steps.

"It stopped being a place for me to get away from everything. It became a place where we would go to be alone, work on our art, hone our skills and enjoy the peace of nature." Aurora looks at me with an intrigued expression.

"What kind of art?" I chuckle and grin.

"You will see when we are inside." She nods her head and walks inside when I open the door for her. We enter into the mud room and I quickly take of my shoes and replace them with my comfy wolf slippers. I hand Aurora the moon slippers Selene usually wears. When you stand with your feet together the half moon on each slipper line up. She quickly puts them on after letting out a chuckle. I then point her towards the next door. She takes a few steps into the room and pauses, a stunned expression on her face.

The room she walked into was the den which has a warm, inviting atmosphere to it. It was filled with paintings, hand-crafted furniture, and pictures of friends and family. It also had a stone fire place with a spark grill to protect the furnishings. The walls, furniture and carpet where all in warm earthy tones. What has her by surprise is that all the paintings are about medieval themed places.

"They are quite beautiful, aren't they? I had them appraised by an art dealer I know and I was completely stunned at the value he places on them. He said that all of them would sell at high prices in a gallery. So, I asked Selene if she would like to sell reproductions of them. She said yes and my art dealer friend was ecstatic. He had a handful of reproductions made of each one and put up the originals in his gallery. He was right, even though he made it clear that he was only going to sell reproductions of the original artwork they still sold for thousands of dollars each. This was because of how few reproductions there were. But one stood out among them. It was her painting of a castle and walled town settled upon a mountain with forests and fields bellow. She put so much detail into it that it stunned the people at the gallery. It took the art world by storm with how it looked like a picture taken with film yet maintained a dream like feel. Its reproductions sold for about one point five million each." Aurora is completely shocked at hearing this.

"I always knew she was a talented painter but I never thought she would get this kind of unbiased reviews. Are these the originals?" I nod at her question. "We will have to take them with us."

"I'd like that. To bad we can't take the whole cabin too. It would be nice to have a familiar place." Aurora smiles a little and says something that shocks me.

"Who says we can't? Where would you like it? I recommend in the forest near the town where my daughters live." I smile happily.

"That sounds great. Thank you so much. Now you wanted to know how Selene and I met right?" I ask directing us towards the rustic arm chairs and couch.

"Yes, like I said earlier, I would like to learn more about you." She takes a seat in one of the arm chairs and I sit across from her.

"Well we actually met at a large renaissance fair in London, England. I was stopping this punk teenage boy and his buddies from hurting a teenage girl any further. She already had a large bruise on her face. Apparently, she had broken up with him a week earlier because he was too possessive. He didn't like that she left him so he followed her to the fair and punched her in the face, yelling at her that she belonged to him. I didn't like what he was doing so I stepped in front of the poor girl. The ex-boyfriend asked me what I thought I was doing. I told him that I was simply making sure he stayed away from the girl, who wanted nothing to do with him. He accused me of trying to steal her from him. I was about to reply when I saw Selene waving at me. She wanted to know if I wanted help and I accepted. She walked up and pretended to be my girlfriend, because this was the first we had seen each other. The leader was flustered by this turn of events and wanted to start a fight. I told him that wasn't a good idea since I was wearing plated leather armour and had my double scabbard with sword breaker and falchion on. He stormed off with his friends following close behind. Selene and I take the girl to the local police station and report the incident. After that I asked Selene if she would like to be my guest to the banquet that was being held at the fair. She agreed and we've been together ever since. Do you know about what all happened at the fair last night?" With an angry frown she responds, anger lacing her words.

"Yes, I do. I wish you had inflicted more harm to that bastard. But I am glad her last moments here were happy ones. Now to fill in some details I am sure you have been wondering about. The reason Selene's body disappeared shortly after her death was because it was just a physical manifestation of her soul. The reason Selene's soul was here in this world is because she became corrupted by an evil spirit when she let jealousy build up within her heart. She was jealous of how her sister was praised and adored for her accomplishments and abilities, while she was left behind. She had similar accomplishments and abilities but because hers were all at night the people ignored her for the most part. My oldest daughter failed to see the dark emotions building within her sister, until it was to late. She was forced to banish her sister. But she didn't want to punish her sister for her mistakes, so she split Selene's soul from her body. The body which was corrupted by the evil spirit who resided in her mind, which is attached to the physical body, was banished to the moon of our world. Selene's soul was sent to an alternate world similar to our own, this world. Her body and mind were trapped on the moon until the spell that was placed on her ended in one thousand years. Selene's soul would live here, being reborn every one-hundred year's. Every one-hundred year's here is two hundred in our world, so she only had to be reborn five times. But if she was to ever die a violent death at the hands of another she would be sent back early. Living on the moon alongside the evil spirit that took advantage of her weakness." I am filled with shock, and sadness at those last few sentences.

"Like what happened the other night." Aurora nods.

"Exactly. Because she died at twenty-five years of age in this world she has to live for one hundred and fifty years on the moon with that despicable spirit. You will arrive with only fifty years left because of the time it will take to not only transfer you to our world but to also to make the necessary changes to your body to allow you to live in our world. I will also be bestowing on you your gifts at this time. Now, I think it is time for me to tell you a little about the gifts I will be giving you. And tell you a little about the world you will be a part of. There are three primary races in Althiea. The Magi, who can actively use and shape the mana within themselves and in the world around them to varying degrees. They often use their magic to improve the world around them. The Archarians, who have wings and can manipulate the weather. They are a proud people, with a long history of combat. Last but not least, The Adhamon. Their name means 'of the earth' and springs from their deep connection with the world. The are capable of making things grow where you wouldn't think it was possible. I know of an apple orchard in a dessert plain area. There is a spattering of other races but these three hold the majority." I nod my head thinking.

"The Adhamon sound like my kind of people." Aurora nods.

"If you had been born in our world you would have likely been either a Magi or an Adhamon. There are two other races in Althiea I need to tell you about. Both are quite rare. One is the ruling class of Althiea since before recorded time. They are called Triumvria, or Triumvrite for singular terminology. They have the strength of mind and body of the Adhamon. The wings and weather manipulation skills of the Archarians and the magical abilities of the Magi. They are far stronger in these areas than any of the races could hope to be. They help and guide the races of Althiea."

"The Triumvria sound like superheroes." A worrying thought crosses my mind. "Are there any supervillains among the Triumvria?" A troubled look crosses Auroras face.

"Yes, one. She tried to plunge the world into eternal night. She was defeated, but at great cost." Here she pauses for a moment, then takes a deep breath and continues. "But there is one more race left to tell you about. And they have an important role in the world. And there are fewer of them than even Triumvria." She says with note of happiness in her other wise saddened tone.

"Who are they?" I ask, curious to find out.

"They are called Ethereals and are very unique. They only appear when someone dies after doing a noble deed or after living a noble life. Now not just any noble deed will create an Ethereal. It has to be something that changes things for the better for an entire continent or the whole world. They are the protectors of the world, aiding those who are trying to improve the lot of the common people. There are currently none on the world." A sneaking suspicion creeps into my awareness.

"Why tell me of them if there are none in existence? Unless you plan to turn me into one." A smile crosses her face, a giggle escaping out of her.

"Indeed, I do. Ethereals are unique in the fact that their talents and skills in their previous life dictate what they become as Ethereals. As well as their accomplishments. All Ethereals have ethereal wings with crystalline bones. Ethereals also gain magic if they didn't already have it. It usually reflects their special talent. But Ethereals can learn any magic if they take the time to learn it. Any other changes are dependent on their past life." Aurora's smile widens, her eyes twinkling.

"Now since your case is unique even among Ethereals, you will have some differences from the norm. While all Ethereals can cast magic of come kind, you will have access to two types. One is related to your skills as a swordsman and Master-at-arms, allowing you to summon magical weapons imbued with specific functions. It also allows you to imbue real weapons with magic as well. Your other magic is because of your human side. You are able to use runic pentacles to form magic formulas of varying effects. Basically, you are able to perform alchemy with the added bonus of being able to make magic artifacts through your magic formulas." After seeing the stunned look upon my face Aurora laughs.

"So, what do you think of all of that? It's a whole lot to take in, isn't it?" She says with a smile. As I wake up from my shock, a question crosses my mind.

"Doesn't that give me an unfair advantage over the other people in your, I mean our world?" Aurora grins at my question.

"My daughter sure knows how to pick her man. Most people would be eager to be more powerful than others. But here you are, not wanting to have an unfair advantage." Here she chuckles. "You will have access to a far larger pool of mana then most of the other magi, but like most others you will have to train to have access to all of it. And you will have to learn to control your magic, since just because you have the ability doesn't mean you can control it. You will have one hundred years to get the basics down and to start your training with your other magic while I make the changes and transfer your new body." I tilt my head to the right in confusion.

"How will I be able to train while you are altering my body?" I ask, confusion in my voice.

"You will be training inside your mind in a mental training ground. Are there any other questions you have before we leave?" At her words I pause to think. Only one question comes to mind.

"I only have one question. Will Selene and I still be married in Althiea?" I ask with hope in my voice. Aurora smiles at me, a warm smile filled with happiness.

"Indeed, you will be. As far as the law and society are concerned, you two are husband and wife. You have a deep bond, all the way to your very souls." I smile at that.

"Then I am ready to go meet my sister-in-law. Will I see you after I cross over?" Aurora looks both happy and sad at my words.

"I am glad you are eager to meet Celestia." Her face falls at her next words. "But you and I will not meet again. I have moved on from their world. I still watch over them, but I can do little to physically do things for them. Doing this for Selene, or Luna as she is known in our world, is at the upper limit to what I can do." I nod at her explanation.

"Is there anything you want me to tell them?" I ask. At my question her face lights up.

"Actually, there is. Would you te…" At this point an idea pops into my head so I interrupt her.

"Wait, I have an idea. It involves my magic." She looks a little upset that I interrupted her, but motions me to continue.

"Can you plant a memory in my mind?" At my question her upset look changes to one of confusion. She nods and says;

"Yes, I can but, why do you ask?" At her response I smile widely.

"Because I thought of a way to use my alchemical magic. I can enchant a crystal to relay a mental message to the person who holds it. With this spell I can transfer the memories you implant in me to the crystals. And if you talk like you are talking to them in the memory, when they watch it you will be, in essence, talking directly to them. They can then rematch the memory when ever they want." At my suggestion her face lights, up with a smile of pure happiness and tears of joy start to fall from her eyes.

"That sounds perfect!" I chuckle happily at her.

"Now if I may make a suggestion." She nods and I continue. "I suggest you make at least three memories. At least one for each of them individually and one for the both of them when they are reunited." If at all possible her face brightens even more at my suggestion. She practically tackle hugs me and starts crying harder.

"Thank you! Thank you for giving me a chance to talk to my daughters again. Even if I can't be there personally. You are the kindest man I know, besides my husband." I grin at her reaction and hug her back.

"No need to thank me. I'm glad to help you, mother." I add that last bit to see how she will respond. She lets go of me and gives me a happy smile at me calling her mother. She then wipes her tears away and says;

"Alright, lets get started. Go grab everything you want to bring with you and then we will leave." I nod and go grab all my gear, ready to start my new life.


	2. Chapter 1: Waking up in a new land

**_Author's Note:_** _Hey, here is the next chapter of Luna's Familiar Stranger. I a hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it. Also, I do not own MLP or any of its characters. Only the parts of the story not related to MLP storyline and my OC's._

Birds chirping, bugs buzzing, a distant wolf howl, the gentle sound of the wind traveling through the trees. These are the sounds I heard as I awoke. I slowly open my eyes, and see that I am in a forest that looks very wild. Tangled vines, thick undergrowth and weirdly shaped trees surround me. I take note that I am wearing my plated leather armour and have my weapons already strapped on. I look around and find my pack leaning up against a tree a few feet away from me. I slowly work my way up into an upright position, not wanting to get dizzy from standing up too fast. I grab my pack and try to get my bearings. But that is a futile effort since I don't know where the heck I am.

I reach into one of the pockets on my pack and get out my compass. I decide to head north, since at this point one direction is as good as another. As I travel I begin to notice that the sounds of wildlife begin to fade. _I wonder why the animals all got quiet. That usually only happens if there is a large predator near by. It would probably be a good idea to have a blade out right now._ With that thought I draw my sword breaker, and proceed deeper into the forest. As I walk I notice the telltale signs of large creatures walking through a forest. A broken branch here, a print there. What is strange is that the prints look oddly humanoid. And there are far too many for just a single creature. From what I'm seeing there must be at least ten of them, if not more. _I wonder what could be causing these prints._ I am drawn out of my musings by a bright glint in the undergrowth. I draw my falchion and use it to part the obstructing plants.

Seeing no danger, I get closer, and see something that completely through me for a loop. It is a stone dagger. I didn't think I would ever see one of these outsides of a museum. I'm not just talking about the blade of a stone dagger, but the whole thing. It has a rough hewn wooden handle and what looks like animal sinew for the binding. I pick it up carefully, in case it has any poisonous substances on it. _Might as well take it with me. Who knows, someone might be able to tell me who made it._ I wrap it in a leaf for safe keeping and head on my way, still wary of whoever or whatever is scaring the wildlife. After sheathing my falchion, I double check my bearing on my compass.

Oddly enough the tracks of the humanoid creatures are heading roughly in the same direction as I am. This worries me a little, since I have no clue who they are. After a few hours of travel the tracks that have been going in a northerly direction make a sudden left turn. This puzzles me as I haven't seen any reason for them to due so. Ignoring the tracks for now I continue heading north. I soon come upon a large tree, which looks to be dying from internal rot. _This should do nicely to practice some of my magic._ I set my pack down and place one hand upon the tree. I think carefully about what I want to happen.

 _Okay, I need to remove all the rotten material and any insects and plant life that are detrimental to the trees health. I then need to strengthen the remaining wood and the actual living portions of the tree. I then need to sculpt the interior of the tree to make a livable space, including holes for a door, a few windows and a vent for smoke that won't let water in, A little bit of magic to keep creatures out of the vent, and to make the tree poisonous if chewed on as an insect and rodent deterrent. I also need to make some rudimentary glass for the windows. And a door with a simple latch handle with a hidden activator for a deadbolt lock. I'll keep it simple on the interior with just two rooms. A high ceilinged main room with lots of shelves for storage, a stone fireplace in the middle of the room. The fire place will be designed to sit in the wooden floor, the wood being protected from harm by stone bricks that do not absorb heat well. A lattice stone grid supported by four stone blocks will allow ash and coals to fall through while four curved stone blocks can support a large pot. The pit will be placed centrally to not only allow ample room to walk around it, but to also allow the produced heat to evenly spread throughout the structure._

 _On the opposite side of the door will be the small bedroom. Just big enough to hide the bed from site of the door, and not much more._ With everything planed out in my head I begin casting my magic. A large runic pentacle appears under my hand and spreads until it is large enough to encompass the entire tree base. The pentacle then floats down to ground level and slowly works its way up, disintegrating any rotten or foreign material as it goes. Once it reaches the top the runes in the outer ring of the pentacle change, and the whole pentacle changes color from a brilliant orange to a peaceful green. It makes its way down the tree even slower than before, as this time my magic is doing the strengthening and sculpting. I am also almost at my limit, these two spells are complicated and powerful, so they take up almost all of my current magical reserve. Once the runic pentacle reaches the bottom of the tree it goes underground and finishes strengthening the tree.

Once that is done I take my hand off the tree and collapse on the ground. I'm sore all over and at first, I can't tell why. Then I take a good look at my surroundings and notice that it is almost nighttime. I've been standing here for around four hours. I get up and stretch out all the kinks I have developed and gather up my pack and head in side the tree-turned-house. I look around at my work an I am satisfied at how things turned out. The main room is quite large and will serve admirably as a home base while I find out where I am. All I have left to do is the enchantments to keep creatures out of the vent, make the tree poisonous if chewed, make a door with all its hardware, windows, and the stone fire place. And of course, a bed. But for now, my bedroll will do fine. I cast a few runic ward spells to alert me to trouble as well as trap them if they attempt to enter.

I have a light meal of some dried fruit and bread, washed down with some water. I lay down to sleep and almost immediately succumb. I awake the next morning feeling rejuvenated and ready to take on the day. I eat some jerky and dried fruit for breakfast, then continue enchanting the tree. The spells to keep pests out quickly take effect, leaving just the crafting of the door and windows. I cast a runic spell to pull a good amount of fine sand from the environment. I then heat it up to melt the and into the desired shapes. The windows are custom fitted to the window holes and are designed to pivot in the middle to allow them to be opened. I walk to a nearby tree and turn it into wooden planks and use wooden nails and tree sap to hold them together. For now, it will have leather hinges and a wooden dead bolt. When I get a hold of some metal other then my own gear I will make proper hinges and latches.

I grab my gear and continue heading north, all the while on the lookout for metal and creatures who could do me harm. As I walk along my magic pings a small amount of iron sixteen feet to my left. I head in that direction and find a sad sight. There is a long dead warrior in what looks to be the remains of iron armour. A practically shredded iron breast plate, iron cuisses, and iron gauntlets, the rest of his armour is heavily decayed leather. All the damage to his armour and what I can see of his wounds appears to have been done by the claws of a large beast. As I get closer I find a broken short sword and a decaying spear haft with the top foot of spear missing.

"At least he went down fighting. A warrior should die on his feet, sword in hand." My voice is filled with sadness and respect. After paying my respects, I begin collecting all the iron on his person. It should be more than enough to outfit my house. As I am about to leave I notice a hint of gold coming from a decayed pouch on his side. After opening it I find a treated wooden tube with gold end caps and filigree running its length. Curious I open the tube and find two maps. One covers a large area and is obviously a copy of a professional cartographer's work. The country it shows is Althiea, so I at least know now that I am in the right country. The second map is hand drawn and has little in the way of detail. But what it does show is the route the man took. From the notes on the back and edges, it looks like he was an adventurer looking for a castle buried deep within this forest. From his notes the forest is called the Everfree and is teaming with dangerous creatures and monsters. From the directional notations he was heading south into the forest from a village located near the northern edge of the forest.

It looks like the adventurer had hiked along an old abandoned trail that lead in a southernly direction for a little over a day. _So at least I know that if I keep heading north I will be out of the woods soon. But I don't know if I am a day away or even further. I'd best head back to the tree and head out in the morning._ I put the maps back in the tube and head back to the newly formed tree house. I put my pack inside and swap out the leather hinges and wooden latches with iron versions. I even install the hidden catch for the dead bolt lock I had thought about. I finish my work for today by creating the stone fire pit. I gather some dead wood from the forest and get a nice warm fire started. I lock the door and head to bed, snug in my bedroll with a small fire blazing away.

The next morning, I eat a quick breakfast, and make sure the fire is out before heading out to find the edge of the forest. Judging from the suns position in the sky, its only a couple of hours after dawn. To my surprise, ten minutes after I pass the fallen adventure, I stumble across a trail. Its heading in a north westerly direction, not straight north but close enough for me. _Might as well follow the trail to see where it goes. If nothing else its easier going than forcing my way through the undergrowth._ After a half an hour of following the trail I begin to notice that the trees are beginning to thin out. Another fifteen or twenty minuets of travel I emerge from the trees. The first thing I see is a large field of apple trees in organized rows to my left.

"Were there is an orchard of that size, someone has to be around." I muse out loud. I head towards the orchard and follow a white picket fence that forms the perimeter of the property. Its not long before I come across a curious sound. It sounds as though someone is hitting something followed with by the sound of soft thuds. My curiosity peaked, I hop the fence and head towards the sound. After a few minutes' walk I come across an odd sight. There are three people, a man a woman and a young boy. The man has dark red hair, a heavy farmers tan and very well-muscled. The woman has very light blonde hair, almost white, she has a fair amount of muscle and a kind look to her. Her skin tone is similar to the man beside her. The young boy has bright red hair and light tan. The man and woman stand next to a tree each and then proceed to punch or kick the tree in front of them causing apples to fall into wooden buckets arranged around the tree trunk. The young boy appears to be doing quality control, watching the apples fall and grabs any rotten ones as they fall. He is pretty good at it too, catching and throwing away most of the bad apples before they are in the buckets.

He can't get them all of course but it reduces the number of bad apples in the buckets by a good margin. _I think I've been watching them for long enough. Much longer and I might make a bad impression._ With that in mind I start walking towards them at a slow pace.

"Hello!" I call out, making sure my voice is loud enough to carry while maintain a friendly tone. At my unexpected voice the three of them are quite startled. The man instinctively puts himself in front of the woman, while she clutches the boy close.

"Who are you, and why are you on our property?" The man asks, a tense and warry tone to his baritone voice. His sky-blue eyes glare at me intensely. I stop a few yards away from the family. I hold my hands up in a gesture of peace.

"My name is Fael Barloc. I am a traveling swordsman. I heard the sounds of activity and came to ask for help, I am a bit… lost." I say that last part sheepishly, for while I do have the maps I don't actually know where I am. At hearing my explanation, the man seems to tense up and relax at the same time. His protective stance loosens a bit, but his expression hardens a little.

"What kind of a swordsman are you? You are Archarian, based on the wings, but I haven't heard of an Archarian with wings like yours. And your Arcane Focus says you are a Magi, but you are built like an Adhamon. Who or what are you?" His tone is an odd mix of suspicion, fear and curiosity. At the mention of my wings I take my first hard look at them. Because of my pack my wings are folded so I take off my pack and spread them. I get a few awed gasps from the family, and frankly I am awed myself. The 'bones' of my wings are made of what looks like a ruby colored crystal, with an emerald colored mist flowing around them. They seam to be missing a few bones until I suddenly feel a connection to them form. I can sense that they are not fully opened yet.

I will my wings open, and to my surprise more crystalline bones unfold from the main bones and stretch out, making the emerald mist expand with them. My wings are more like a bat's or since this is a world with magic, a dragon's. Once my wings are finished unfolding, crystalline feathers take shape, with their main color being emerald with ruby shafts and veins. I flex my wings a little and I feel some tension and knots I didn't realize I had unraveling. Through my new sense I learn that I can manipulate the density and composition of the feathers. I can harden them for defense and it will be like having flexible living steel shields on my back. I can make the feathers denser to absorb and disperse magical and elemental attacks, to a point. I can dismiss my wings and the crystal bones will absorb into my body. But if I do this it will take a minute or so until I am able to use them to fly. The family stand in awe at my over ten-foot wingspan. Realizing I have been ignoring the awestruck man's question, I turn my attention back to him.

"Sorry about that, I haven't actually gotten to have a good look at them since I got them. I haven't had a chance to test out my new body fully." At this the woman speaks up.

"And what do you mean by that? Hmm?"

"To answer that I need to ask a question. Have you ever heard of an Ethereal?" The two adults nod their heads, but the young boy has a confused look upon his face.

"What's an Ethereal?" He asks as he sounds out the name. I look to the parents to see if they want me to explain. They nod in the affirmative.

"Go on ahead. While we have heard some tales about Ethereals, we don't know a whole lot about them." I nod and smile.

"Well then, where to begin. An Ethereal is a person who has passed on after accomplishing a noble deed that effected a whole country or the entire world. Or they could have lived a noble life that spread happiness and harmony. As a reward they are reborn to continue their work for another life time, and are granted new abilities to help them. The specifics of these abilities are dependent on their previous life, so I won't get into it. Did that explanation help lad?" I ask the boy. He nods his head and smiles.

"Okay, then to answer your question sir, I am an Ethereal who was recently reborn. I have no clue where I am except for the country because of some maps I found after waking up in the forest to the south." A look of shock crosses their faces.

"You mean to tell me that you were in the Everfree forest and survived?" The man asked.

"Well yeah," I say with a shrug. "It helped that I didn't encounter any creatures, but I did come across some strange tracks and a stone dagger." At the mention of a stone dagger a worried expression the adults' face's.

"The dagger, can I see it?" The male farmer says. Digging the wrapped dagger out of my pack, I hand it to him. Unwrapping it slowly he gasps at the sight of it.

"Do you know who or what made that weapon?" I ask after seeing the fear in his eyes. He gulps and says with a shaky voice.

"Y-Yes, I do. Goblins made this dagger. Which way did the tracks you found lead?" At hearing the word goblin, it comes as no surprise that I am, well surprised. Shaking my head to clear it I respond.

"The tracks were heading in a northerly direction, until they turned in a more westerly direction about half a day from the edge of the forest." At hearing that the man lets out a relived sigh.

"Oh, thank Celestia. The town would be in great danger if a goblin band attacked without warning. I will let the others know that there is a goblin band in the area. The mayor will inform Camelot of the threat. They can dispatch soldiers to here within a day." At the names he was dropping I was stunned. _Did he say Celestia? I will have to ask about her later. For now, I should ask them their names and talk to the mayor about offering my services to wipe out the threat._

"Forgive for not asking earlier, but what are your names?" A slightly sheepish look crosses their faces at realizing that while they now knew my name I didn't know theirs. The man steps forward and offers his hand. I grasp his proffered hand and we shake, going through the age-old test of grip strength that men do. I am not completely surprised by this mans impressive grip, he is a farmer after all.

"That is an impressive grip you have there Mr. Barloc. My Name is Jonagold Spade, this is my wife Granny Smith and my son Bright Mac." As he mentions his son he ruffles the boy's hair. The boy gets an embarrassed look on his face and swats at his dad's hand. Jonagold just chuckles and looks back at me.

"You said you were lost earlier right?" I nod in response. "Well this here is Sweet Apple Acres, which was started by my wife and her family about one hundred and fifty years ago. The town nearby is called Salemville, which is located south of the capital city Camelot. It takes about three days to reach by horse, or about a day by train."

"Thank you, now you mentioned Celestia earlier, does she reside in the capital?"

"Well of course she does. Camelot resides in the center of Althiea, And the city was built around Harmony Castle where Princess Celestia resides." At that piece of information my eyes go wide from shock. _My sister-in-law is a princess!? That means that Selene is a princess to! I-I married royalty! Wait this means I am a prince! Crap!_

"Are you all right there Mr. Barloc? You look mighty shocked." Granny Smith says with a worried tone. I shake my head to clear it and look at her. Her and her husband both have worried expressions on their faces. I smile apologetically and say,

"Sorry about that. I just didn't realize that the person I have been waiting one hundred years to meet was a princess." At my words Jonagold and Granny Smith have shocked expressions at how old I am.

"If you have been waiting a hundred years to meet the Princess how old are you?" Bright Mac asks innocently. His question wakes Granny Smith from her shock and she scolds him lightly.

"Now Bright Mac, you don't go asking people their age like that." Bright Mac frowns and looks towards his feet. I chuckle at this family by play.

"Its alright Mrs. Smith, I don't mind the question. Kids are curious, and I find their energetic personality's fun. Now to answer your question lad, I am one hundred and twenty-five years old." I almost burst out laughing at the expressions on their faces when I tell them my age.

"How… how can you be that old with how young you look." Jonagold asks shakily.

"Yeah you're almost as old as my parents." Bright Mac says. I laugh heartily at his bluntness.

"Hehe, kids are fun. Well I am still very young by my life span. I will live as long as Cel.. I mean Princess Celestia will, for we have the same life span. I was gifted this life span when I was reborn. As far as I know I am the only Ethereal with this gift."

"That's, that's amazing." Granny Smith says with awe in her voice. Jonagold is just standing there with his mouth open.

"Yes, Yes it is. Now Jonagold can you direct me to your mayor? I wish to offer my services to help protect your town." Shaking his head, he nods.

"Sure, the mayor is in town hall which is in the enter of town. It should only take you about an hour to get to town from here. Just head west from here along the path and you will hit Salemville in no time." As if called by his words an arrow strikes him in the shoulder, causing him to yell in pain and fall to the ground. I immediately shift my wings to shields and cover Granny Smith and Bright Mac from any other projectiles. I look over my shoulder as I see a couple goblins whooping and hollering near the edge of the orchard.

Being a little ticked off at them for hurting Jonagold, I use my magic to summon six throwing knives and hurl them at the goblins. Normally the knives wouldn't have been able to go that far, but I am both very strong and I gave them a boost with my magic. The knives race towards the goblins and strike home. Three of the four goblins fall dead, the fourth screams in terror at the pain in his side caused by the knife that knicked his side. _Three out of four dead and the fourth injured. Not bad for such a long distance._ I turn to Jonagold and take a look at the arrow wound. The arrow buried itself about three inches in and appears to be almost poking out the other side.

"How's it look?" Jonagold asks, his voice laced with pain, a worried look on his face. I pat his other shoulder.

"You will be fine as long as it isn't poisoned. Even if it is, as long as you get to a hospital soon you will be alright. I will just remove the arrow." I say reassuringly. As I go to grab the arrow Granny Smith stops me.

"Are you sure you know what you are doing?" Her face has a worried look on it and tears are threatening to fall. I smile warmly at her and nod.

"Yes, I have done this several times. I have taken several field medical courses and have patched up dozens of combatants over the years. Your husband is in good hands. Now hold him up. I have to push the arrow completely through, to do less damage. If I were to try to pull it out it would cause a lot of damage." She nods and helps Jonagold sit up.

"Now Jonagold, this is going to hurt, but it should be over quickly. Ready?" He nods. "Okay here we go." I place one hand on his shoulder, the other grabs a hold of the arrow shaft. Bracing his shoulder I give the arrow a short shove. The arrow head bursts out of his back along with about an inch of the shaft. I draw my sword breaker and cut the arrow head off, I then remove and splinters from the shaft and quickly remove the arrow shaft. To his credit, Jonagold barely moves or makes a sound the entire time. After another pat to his uninjured shoulder, I nod to him and say;

"There we go. You should be fine now." I pick up the arrow head gently and turn to Granny Smith.

"Do you have a piece of cloth I can wrap this in?" At her questioning look I explain further. "I am going to wrap the arrow head in the cloth so you can give it to the doctors, just in case its poisoned. If it is, it should have enough poison left on it for them to figure out what kind and counter act it." Granny Smith nods her head.

"That sounds right smart to me." I smile at her.

"Could you also do me a favor. Get word to the mayor of what's happened. She will know what to do. And tell her that a mercenary has volunteered to thin the ranks of the goblins for the town. I will leave a clear trail to where they are hiding." A look of shock spreads across all three of their faces. Jonagold sits up and shifts a little and groans as the movement aggravates his wound.

"You mean you will willingly volunteer to attack a goblin band by yourself? What makes you think you will stand a chance by yourself?" He asks, his voice laced with pain. I chuckle at his question. This draws confused looks. I smile a confident smile.

"I think I will stand a great chance because I am a blademaster, and have been in combat before. I know not to go into a fight cocky. Besides, goblins are cowards. I likely won't have to fight the entire band." Expressions of both shock and awe appear upon their faces.

"You-you are a blademaster?" Granny Smith stuttered. I nodded my head. Bright Mac looks between me and his mom and asks;

"What is a blademaster?" I look at him with a warm smile.

"A blademaster is someone who is an expert in at least one particular type of bladed weapon. I am an expert in swords and knives. Now you best be off. You need to warn the town and get your husband some help." Granny Smith and Bright Mac nod their heads and help Jonagold to his feet, and start the trek to the town. I turn in the direction of the goblins and after picking up my pack, head towards them. Once I am close I observe the goblins for a bit to make sure they are dead. I notice that my throwing knives are still solid, so I reclaim the mana that I used to create them. After a quick search of the bodies I find two iron daggers, two triangular shaped gold coins, seven silver coins with a hole punched through them and a handful of square brass coins. Chuckling with glee I pocket the coins. I take a closer look at the iron daggers and see that they are very poor quality. I put them in to my pack to re-forge them later.

After that is all finished I look around for any trace of the goblin that ran. I quickly spot some blood not to far away and notice a trail of it leading into the Everfree Forest. I start to follow the trail and quickly realize that I could be walking into a trap so I unsheathe my sword breaker just in case. After a few minutes of walking I come across a small trail. _Looks like it was recently made. Not by that lone goblin, but probably by the group he was in. Looks like he beelined straight for the main group._ I chuckle darkly. _Looks like this is going to be easy. Well easier, but I still better be careful._

I travel for about another hour and a half when I start to hear loud barks and growls that sound distinctly none canine in origin. Thinking I must be getting close I summon a variety of throwing weapons and have the float around me. I also quietly drop my pack and place a locater spell on it. I creep closer to the sounds, careful to not make any noises myself. I soon spot the goblins, not surprisingly they are the ones making all the noise. I count about fifteen goblins in the group, including the one I injured. That makes the original size of the group anywhere at least eighteen. More could be elsewhere, doing whatever goblins do when not harassing people. I quickly sheath my sword breaker and grab the two tomahawks I have in the group of blades flying over my head.

I quickly take aim at the most heavily armed and decorated goblin in the group. That much armour and ugly decorations marks him as someone important to the group, either the leader or the shaman. Ether one makes him a threat, so he needs to go. Two powerful throws later and my target has two tomahawks buried in his back. He falls to the ground with a cry of agony, then nothing. Quickly grabbing some shuriken, I throw them at the closest goblins to me, three for each of them. One takes all three in his back, going from his shoulder blades down. The other only takes two, one in the right shoulder and the other in his right kidney region. They fall to the ground in great pain. The rest of the group is in shock, seeing three of their number taken down so easily. Since goblins are not very bright, they have not figured out where I am yet. They start franticly looking around for me, fear and anger in their expressions.

Spotting an opportunity, I grab the longest of the six throwing knives floating above me, each having a roughly six-inch blade, and hurl them at two separate targets. The blades sink deeply into their targets, punching through their chests, causing them to fall over dead. I decide to mess with the remaining goblins, their number being only ten now. I step out into the open and reclaim the mana from the blades. This causes several azure blue lights to drift towards me. The remaining goblins follow the floating mana back to me.

Seeing only one attacker they get bold and start hollering and shrieking war cries. I draw my sword breaker and falchion, and start slowly walking towards the goblins. Several of them fire arrows at me, but I block them with my right wing. After several volleys of arrows, they realize that doesn't work, so three of them charge at me. Two have stone tipped spears and the other has a badly pitted iron short sword. I swat the spears out of the way with my falchion and use my sword breaker to stab one of them in the chest, killing him. The other I kick in the leg, buying me time. I block a clumsy blow from the third goblin with my left wing and turn to face him. He uses an overhead swipe of his sword next that I easily catch in one of the slots of my sword breaker, and with a quick twist break his sword in half. I then finish him off with a quick slash of my falchion diagonally across his torso. I hear a shout from behind me and quickly use my wings to protect my back.

I feel something splinter on my wings and a cry of dismay. I spin in a circle with my falchion horizontal to my body, ready to cut any unready opponent that is to close. A goblin jumps out of the way of my sword, dropping the splintered remains of his spear. He tries to grab the knife at his belt, but I give him no chance. I run him through with my sword. I kick him off my blade and turn to the rest. The remaining seven goblins all look between themselves and me, trying to figure out what to do. I wait for them, for it doesn't matter if I kill them now or the guards hunt them down later.

Apparently gathering some courage from the fact that there are seven of them and one of me, five charge at me and two hang back to pester me with arrows. Making a quick decision I use my magic to summon and throw six throwing knives at the bow wielders. I have no time for anything else as I am engaged in one on five combat. I have one thought before battle commences. _Thank god for my wings._ Blocking attacks from multiple directions proves a little too much for me. I quickly get several cuts and shallow wounds.

But the toll paid unto my opponents for the wounds is far higher. Already two are dead and one is injured. But they have knocked my falchion out of my hand during the fight. I need time to draw my khopesh, so I throw my sword beaker at one of them and send out a blast of telekinesis, knocking them back a little. I draw my khopesh, but about mid draw, one of the goblins lunges with his spear. I go to block the blow with my left wing, but realize a split second to late that I forgot to harden the feathers. The spear tip bursts though my wing, about an inch and a half of it poking through. I howl in pain, jerking my wing back in reflex. This has the added benefit of yanking the spear out of the goblins hands.

I angrily swing my sword at the offending goblin the heavy curved edge of my khopesh acting like an axe and cleaving into his body. I Sparta kick him sending him flying off my blade. A shout from behind me alerts me, and I quickly turn around. One of the remaining goblins swings a sword in a diagonal strike. I use the inner curve of my weapon to deflect the blow. I upper cut him in the jaw, knocking him out. The last goblin tries to flee but in my pain induced rage I brutally strike his back. As I stand there panting, I hear something to my right. I aggressively turn in that direction, raising my khopesh into a guard position.

What I see startles me at first, for I wasn't expecting company. Well none goblin company. What looks like twelve guards have appeared on the edge of the battle field. A look of shock and a little fear upon their faces. They are all wearing similar gear, plate-mail armour with leather cuisses and greaves. They have a white surcoat with a stylized sun upon it, this marks them as men-at-arms or guards. I relax a little seeing that they aren't goblins, flick my khopesh forcefully towards the ground, removing as much excess blood as I can. After nodding to the guards, I grab my other two swords and a rag from a pouch on my belt and quickly clean them. After sheathing them I turn my attention to the spear in my left wing. I break off the tip and pull out the spear with a scream at the pain. Seeing that I am injured and not acting aggressively the guards approach to help.

"Here let our medic take a look at your wounds." One of them says. Taking a quick look at him I notice that his armour he as a golden olive branch crossed with a sword on his left shoulder. _Must be the leader._ I nod to him sit down on a nearby stump. A guard with a red cross on his shoulder approaches me. With his help I remove the plated leather armour cuirass. My arms, chest and stomach are covered in shallow wounds, none lethal, but all very painful. And the extremely painful wound in my left wing.

"By Celestia, how did you keep fighting with all these wounds?" He asks a pained look upon his face. I merely chuckle at him.

"I have received far worse and kept fighting. I once had a wound in my left arm that went all the way to the bone, and I still won the fight. My opponent certainly learned to pick his targets better after that." The medic looks at me with a bit of awe on his face. The lead guard walks closer.

"Quit gawking and get to work. Now I have a few questions I have to ask you." He asks as the medic gets to work on my wounds, using both magic and standard field medical supplies. I nod to the apparent leader of the group.

"Okay first off, what is your name and occupation?" He asks in an official tone.

"My name is Fael Barloc, and I am a mercenary Blademaster and master-at-arms." At hearing this bit of news most of the guards jump into ready positions, except their leader. He just has a smile on his face.

"I thought as much. Granny Smith told us about you. I wasn't expecting you to do this well. You have saved us a lot of trouble. Thank you. Although the Apples said you were a traveling swordsman, not a mercenary."

"Well the reason for that is because this little quest of mine reminded me of a game I played back where I am from. So, I decided to become a mercenary that handled things like this, as well as escorting people through dangerous places and protecting people who's lives or businesses are threatened. While keeping with in the bounds of the law of course." I turn to look at my wing. "Now if we could continue patching me up. I've never had to repair a wing before." The head guard nods and motions to the medic. He was already pretty much done with the other wounds, and was going to tackle my wing last.

"How have you never had to repair damage to your wings before? It is a standard part of day to day life of an Archarian." The medic asks.

"Well that is because I didn't have them before a couple of days ago. I am a recently reborn Ethereal. Hence the crystal wings indicative of my type." The medic and the other guards all gasp in shock at the mention that I am an Ethereal. I look at them with an amused expression. "That reaction isn't ever going to get old. You would think I was a mythical being or something."

"Well, you kind of are. Ethereals are right up there with Triumvria for being rare and powerful. Also, Ethereals are known for their dedication to combating the forces of evil in the world, both small and large. Ethereals are held in high regard the world over. Welcomed with open arms into any country or kingdom they travel to. There are even some people who worship Ethereals." The guard leader says with a tone of awe. The rest of the guards nod and take a small bow, putting away their weapons and relaxing their guard a little. I nod back and turn my attention to the guard leader.

"That was very informative, thank you…?" The guard leader catches my hint and chuckles.

"I am Corporal Steel Starlight, leader of this squad, and you are welcome. Now Private Silver Lance will patch up your wing and we will get you back to the hospital in town to have them check your wounds. There is only so much that can be accomplished in the field."

"On it sir. Now Mr. Barloc I'm going to remove the damaged feathers and apply a magic patch to keep what ever this ruby colored mist is inside your wing." I nod at him and brace myself. As he works I feel a sharp pain every time he plucks a damaged feather. The pain soon fades as he applies the magic patch.

"Thank you, that feels much better. And for what the ruby mist is, if I had to guess I'm thinking it is mana. And since my mana reserves started to slowly dip, I think it is raw mana." A worried look appears on his face.

"How long have you had the wound?" After thinking about it for a moment I respond.

"I would say about five minutes now. Why, is that a long time for a wound like this?" The medics eyes grow to the size of saucers, and he starts to panic.

"Get me a stretcher, STAT!" The other guards immediately jump to following his order. He turns to me, and starts scanning me with his magic. "How much mana do you think you have left?" He asks me in a worried tone.

"I don't know, my mana wasn't fully recovered from what I did yesterday. I created twenty-two throwing knives of various lengths, two tomahawks, six average sized surikens. Of those various weapons I was able to recover the mana from all but four of that total, because they missed their targets. Speaking of which you might want to check the goblins. A few may only be injured. There were fifteen of them when I started combat." Corporal Starlight nods and has three men start checking. "Now, I lost a small chunk of my total mana from those four blades missing, and the unfocused telekinetic blast took another small chunk. So, all told I think I used up half of what I had left in the tank. Of course, I only had a little under half my total mana at the start of the fight." The medic and the guards within earshot all have stunned looks on their faces.

"You mean you can create weapons at will with your magic?" One of the guards asks shakily. I nod my head, unable to verbally respond because of an odd sensation running through me.

"By Celestia, I wouldn't want to cross him in a fight." Another of the guards mutters while checking the goblins for any that are just wounded. The medic finishes his scan and looks scared from what he detected.

"Where is that damned stretcher!? He's going to pass out any second!" I look at the man and ask shakily;

"Why am I going to pass out? I don't feel all that great right now but that could just be the adrenalin waring off."

"You have lost to much mana. You barely have enough left to keep you alive let alone conscious, and that wound is the cause. The adrenalin of the fight kept you from feeling how close you were too your limits. What you are no doubt feeling is the aftereffects of using and losing to much mana. We have to get you to a hospital now." As he finishes two guards approach with a recently created stretcher. The medic has me lie down on it, and as the guards lift me up I call to the corporal.

"Corporal Starlight, could you have someone grab my gear for me? I left my pack a short way into the woods. I placed a locater spell on it so it should be easy to find." The corporal smiles and nods.

"With all the work you just saved us that's the least I could do. I will have your gear waiting for you when you recover. Some of my men will escort you to the hospital. Good luck." With those final words the guards carrying me on the stretcher started walking, the medic and a handful of guards follow. As we leave the clearing my vision starts to fade. _Looks like I have some work ahead of me. Can't let this happen again._


End file.
